Software Engineering - Coe Lead - Principal

Telstra; Melbourne; On-site; AUD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Telstra is transforming its Software Engineering organisation to build a world-class capability. The CoE Lead Principal will drive capability development across global teams, fostering collaboration and continuous learning while promoting high engineering standards.

This role sits within Telstra’s Advanced Software Engineering Centre of Excellence (ASE CoE) and requires leadership across multiple domains to uplift practices, tools and processes for Telstra’s software delivery across key markets.

Qualifications

• Experience leading data or cloud initiatives.
• Strong understanding of observability and resilience principles.
• Proven ability to resolve complex, cross-domain issues.
• Excellent stakeholder engagement and influencing capabilities.

Responsibilities

• Set best-practice standards and mature Agile/DevOps performance with global CoE and Chapter members.
• Oversee CoE resource allocation, including recruitment or selection.
• Collaborate with Chapter Area leaders to design and implement end-to-end architectural solutions.
• Write production-ready code where needed to exemplify best practices.
• Foster observability, use operational data to improve stability and performance.
• Lead delivery outcomes and capability building for CoE and Chapter teams.

Skills

Data domain experience

Cloud experience

Observability & resilience

AI-powered understanding

Engineering transformation

Stakeholder engagement

Cross-domain issue resolution

Tools

Agile / DevOps

Job description

Employment Type

Permanent

Closing Date

28 Oct 2026 11:59pm

Job Title

Software Engineering - CoE Lead - Principal

Job Summary

Telstra is transforming its Software Engineering organisation to develop a world class engineering capability that delivers products and services to each of Telstra’s key customer segments and markets. The CoE Lead Principal is responsible for building capability within their diverse global teams, as well as promoting a culture of collaboration and continuous learning.

Job Description

The Software Engineering CoEs consist of roles which are acting as guardians of engineering practices standards, supporting component teams or Missions to uplift practices, tools and processes for Telstra.

The Advanced Software Engineering Centre of Excellence (ASE CoE) is a strategic engineering function within Telstra’s IT Software Engineering group.

The team is responsible for:

• Solving Telstra’s most complex engineering challenges.
• Setting enterprise-wide software engineering standards and practices.
• Uplifting engineering capability across the organisation.
• Embedding into strategic missions, delivering uplift, and transitioning ownership back to delivery teams.

Key Must-Have Skills & Experience

• Domain Experience in either Data ( relational data / management / quality)or Cloud, Observability & resilience
• Leading AI-powered understanding
• Strong understanding engineering transformation and innovation.
• Proven ability to resolve complex, cross-domain issues
• Strong stakeholder engagement and influencing capability

Key Accountabilities

• Work with the global CoE and global Chapter members to set best practice standards and mature Agile / DevOps team performance. Align strategic vision in collaboration with the Chapter Area Lead, inspiring the team with a realistic but ambitious vision
• Manage CoE resource allocation with CoE Leads, including recruitment and/or selection, to ensure capability required is available and mitigates resourcing issues
• Collaborate with Chapter Area leaders and stakeholders to lead the software engineering strategy; defining software development standards and designing, collaborating and implementing innovative end-to-end architectural solutions across multiple domains
• Actively write production-ready code where required that accounts for edge cases and errors, which can be used as examples of best practice by other engineers by being easily testable and understood.
• Personally use systematic debugging to diagnose all issues within a set of related domains to enable best practice.
• Foster a culture of observability for Chapter Type, across multiple teams and support their capability to use operational data to improve stability and performance of domains.
• Oversee and advise on the design, build and maintenance of multiple complex software application technologies and their interaction with Telstra processes and systems
• Authentically engage with and influence a complex and multi-stakeholder landscape to support incorporation of customer needs across TSE into leading-edge software application products, services or systems that meet Telstra’s time, cost and quality standards
• Lead the prioritisation of the Backlog against various business metrics to maximise business value
• Take joint responsibility along with the Chapter Area Lead in building capability and managing performance and development of CoE and Chapter members
• Lead professional development for TSE resources
• Develop best practice guidance to ensure the broader software engineering capability is world class
• Embed a culture of continuous improvement, by establishing a sustainable framework of continuous integration, quality assurance monitoring and testing
• Actively promote and contributing to a culture of learning and growth in the team
• Lead the overall delivery outcomes of the CoE within Software Engineering.